Nottingham Forest are finally approaching calm and clear water after years of upheaval and strife

The greatest damnation of Nottingham Forest’s last 20 years is that they have become indoctrinated to view good times with suspicion. Sunshine is merely a prelude to rain; move up the league and it only gives you further to plummet; pride only ever comes before a fall. This club has had more false dawns than a “The Office”-themed fancy dress party.

Perhaps it began with the thousands of marketing leaflets that dropped onto Nottinghamshire doormats in 2004, urging supporters to renew their season tickets with the now infamous tagline: “We’re serious about promotion, are you?”.

Ten months and three managers later, Forest had been relegated to League One, the lowest a former European champion had ever sunk. The first manager, Joe Kinnear, described those fans as “morons”. The third, Gary Megson, described the players as “unfit, disorganised and under-achieving”. Neither quite had the desired motivational effect.

Eighteen months ago, Forest were fourth in the Championship, seven points above seventh place with three weeks of the season remaining. They then conceded a 90th-minute equaliser to Derby County, a 90th-minute winner to Barnsley and still entered the final 25 minutes of their campaign with a three-point and five-goal lead over Swansea City. Cue Forest conceding three times at home to Stoke while Swansea scored three times away at Reading. Every supporter likes to boast about their club’s unique ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Here they have more cause than most to believe it.

More from Football

5 strikers that Arsenal could sign to replace Aubameyang - from Vlahovic to Calvert-Lewin22 December, 2021The FA Cup third round draw in full as non-league Chesterfield head to Chelsea22 December, 2021When postponed Premier League fixtures could be played as calls grow for a ‘circuit break’22 December, 2021

You could make a good case that Forest are the most underperforming professional football club in the country over the last two decades given the money spent, the league positions recorded and the club’s historic achievements.

It is 22 years since they were in the top flight and they have finished in the top six of the second tier only three times over that intervening period. Over the last decade, Forest have spent £144 on wages for every £100 generated in revenue. And for what? Brief sparks of recovery extinguished by self-inflicted misery.

Forest are the club that became hopelessly tied into a cycle of short-termism, the inevitable result when ambitious and impatient owners meet underachievement. Forest have appointed at least one new manager every year stretching back to 2011. Each arrives with their own ideas about how to build the squad that those in power have been only too happy to sanction. Between June 2016 and September 2021, Forest signed exactly 100 different players on permanent or loan deals at a rate of one every 19 days. By any measure, it is an extraordinary turnover of personnel.

Chaos’s great irony is that it often leads to stagnation. In September, Forest had reached another pinch point in the grand plan of owner Evangelos Marinakis. Chris Hughton, appointed 11 months previously on a two-year contract, arrived with a mission to make Forest more resilient. Hughton certainly stopped one side scoring but it wasn’t the opposition: in his last 25 matches, Forest scored more than one goal on only one occasion. He failed to win any of his last 13. Forest were bottom of the Championship when he left.

More from Football

5 strikers that Arsenal could sign to replace Aubameyang - from Vlahovic to Calvert-Lewin22 December, 2021The FA Cup third round draw in full as non-league Chesterfield head to Chelsea22 December, 2021When postponed Premier League fixtures could be played as calls grow for a ‘circuit break’22 December, 2021

In his place came Steve Cooper who, like Hughton, was something a little different. Forest’s recent managers have typically fallen into two camps: foreign (Philippe Montanier, Aitor Karanka, Sabri Lamouchi) or those who had a history with the club (Stuart Pearce, Dougie Freedman, Martin O’Neill).

Hughton’s issue was persuading the players that he was not on his way down; Cooper could reasonably claim the opposite. He had taken Swansea to successive playoff campaigns (including at Forest’s expense in 2019-20). He had a prodigious record with younger players from his time working with England and Liverpool. He was only 42, comfortably the youngest of Forest’s last eight managers.

And Cooper has overseen a mini-revolution. Avoid defeat at Middlesbrough on Boxing Day and Forest will equal their longest unbeaten league run in six years. More striking even than Forest’s league form – no club in the Championship has taken more points since his appointment and they have risen 17 places – is the overhaul in the squad’s age profile. Last season, Forest had the fifth-oldest average starting XI in the Championship. This season, they have the sixth-youngest.

The improvement in Forest’s academy graduates (Joe Worrall, Ryan Yates, Alex Mighten, Brennan Johnson) is directly proportional to the trust placed in them. Despite all of Forest’s travails over the last 10 years, academy manager Gary Brazil is the glue that has held this club together. Whisper it, but Forest finally have a manager that suits Brazil’s body of work and a plan worth sticking with.

More on Nottingham Forest FC

Tottenham’s former physio John Sheridan: ‘I knew if I didn’t get Gazza back on the pitch we’d both be out’24 September, 2021Chris Hughton’s departure will not fix Nottingham Forest – the problems run deeper than that16 September, 2021‘Football treats you like a toy’: Michael Hefele on injury, rehab hell and finding a home at Huddersfield01 September, 2021

But it will only be a whisper. Things quickly change on the banks of the Trent. Managers become defined by their inability to bring the club up quicker than it can drag them down. There is no guarantee of anything at all, least of all linear progress and a promotion bid. Cooper’s Forest have overperformed the data in attack and defence and nobody is immune from the mist from the river that seems to fog the mind of managers.

For now, though, all is calm and all is bright. No Forest supporter is pretending that their club has found the perfect solution to their ills. Nobody is pretending that fixing the team magically fixes everything at the club. But caveated belief is far better than no belief at all. Without belief, we have nothing.

from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3JeTMr4